CIOs often have a hard time demonstrating the value of their IT investments to their business constituents. Technology is simply supposed to work and CIOs typically only hear about it when it doesn't. But in today’s highly connected, fast-paced digital world, you don’t want to hear about a technical issue; you want to anticipate it. For that, you need real-time monitoring.

Enterprise software systems today are highly complex, often comprising on-premises and cloud applications that support other applications that must extend to customers’ computers and mobile devices. Thanks to these interdependencies, a failure in one application can cascade, triggering outages that impact customer experiences. Application performance monitoring (APM) helps IT departments spot and fix bugs before they become issues.

At career clothing retailer Carhartt, APM has not only done just that; it has also provided an unlikely source of business-IT bonding. For CIO John Hill, the ability to scan applications in real time has become a core tool in the company's digital transformation, he says, adding that software he installed to monitor Carhartt’s ecommerce and other applications is helping him keep the business running, particularly during holiday-driven spikes in demand. "Both the business and IT could react to any performance degradation issues before customers are even aware of them," Hill says.

Performance is key in the digital era

Like every retailer, Carhartt faces an existential threat driven by Amazon.com, which is expected to capture 43.5 percent of e-commerce sales in the U.S., according to research from eMarketer. To remain competitive and grow in this challenging environment, the workwear maker is conducting a business transformation to, in Hill's words, "digitize the landscape of Carhartt."